The Manhattan native moved to Dongan Hills in 1950 and settled in Oakwood in 1958.

Mr. Surowiec served in the U.S. Army during World War II. A sergeant, he drove landing craft vehicles full of Allied troops onto the beaches of Europe during the invasion.

It was during his military service that he met Helen Sloan, an Army nurse who served three years aboard the 223rd and 220th hospital ships, from 1943 through 1946. The couple wed in 1950.

Mr. Suroweic began his career in the early 1950s as an ironworker at the former Bethelehem Steel shipyard in Mariners Harbor. In 1964, he went to work for the New York City Transit Authority as a mason, a position he held until retiring in 1979.

He enjoyed racing fancy pigeons and tending his tomato plants.

Helen, his wife of 50 years, died in 2006.

Surviving are his three sons, John J., William P. and Joseph; his daughter, Catherine Surowiec; a sister, Josephine Christenson, and six grandchildren.

The funeral will be tomorrow from the Colonial Funeral Home, New Dorp, with a mass at 9:15 a.m. in St. Charles R.C. Church, Oakwood. Burial will be in Moravian Cemetery, New Dorp.